If an underground canal was man's imitation of nature, man still needed practice.

A year ago, Lestrade would have been impressed, amazed, and in awe of the English engineer to fashion a canal of brick and mortar all the way back to the centre of the 18th-century, and with the tools of that era, create a working channel to connect the coal of Worsley to the surface.

But a year ago, he'd had his first experience with the natural caverns of his grandfather's land, and he was more impressed with the tools of Nature: Stone, water, and patience.

A single spider's net hung over their heads, anchored by the tight mortared line between the bricks of the ceiling. Too dull from coal-grime to shine, it hung like a black thread in the arch of the wet tunnel. A thin breeze following the slow movement of the dull water beneath made the thing wobble and waver like a living thing.

Marcus had opted to pole their boat; he was younger, more resilient, and he most certainly did not possess aching, swollen hands. Lestrade gave in with a display of good manners that he hoped didn't reveal his case of the sour grapes. He hated being idle; it made him think out of boredom, and his thoughts weren't usually good ones.

"ugh." Marcus whispered to himself, uneasy and chilled as the lamp-light caught grotesqueries against the slope and spans of the underground canals.

Geoffrey lowered his head and lamp as well as he could as the boat floated them underneath the tattered silks. He hated spiderwebs far more than he hated the spinners.

Ahead of them, Old Potier was poling on ahead with his disheartening energy. Geoffrey wondered why anyone bothered to compare him with his grandfather. The way things were going, he was far likely to beat the old rascal to the bone-yard. To make matters worse (or at least brag about his ability to recover), Potier was whistling a snatch of tune about sea-farers and some woman pirate queen. Probably an ancestrix.

"Mamm used to say the spiders taught us to knit." Marcus whispered. His breath steamed like a train in the dark of the tunnel. The young man was clearly whistling past his own graveyard as tiny white balls of ice from the outside melted in the creases of his outerwear. He was trying to be a man about the fact that he'd never seen the earth over his head before.

"I remember when she told me that too." Lestrade admitted. Watching a spider at work on her web in the garden…the little children had been allowed that before they were deemed old enough to work with the men. Finger-knotting and the string crafts as a wise past-time; purses by girls, nets for boys. Mamm had told them the spider had taught the first people the trick, and to simply watch a spider spin if they didn't believe her story.

Marcus' innocent memory had triggered a landslide of his own. The garden had been a safe place because it was Jeanne's. He and Jenny had woven grocer's bags and pouches together in the garden. The whole garden had been a tightly-ordered sort of community, where peas never associated with beans, and broken flower-pots made housing for the small brown toads and larger natterjacks. Above their heads strings of bird-houses made use of the insects, and the estate's honeybees had pored over the blooms.

Looking back, it was the fascination of an industrious world within a world that drew Geoffrey to London. He'd been interested in the business within small spaces. It helped immeasurably that all the Quimpers (and thus his brothers) held that there was nothing good about cities. Filthy, cramped, and populated by the poor unfortunates who could wrest nothing better out of their lives...the list went on forever. Their philosophy had implied it was better to serve the Quimpers in Plymouth than it was to rule alone in poverty.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know…what a convenient saying!

Of course it was all part of their work to keep everyone in servitude. It was a fine art form, delicate as a spider's web and as difficult to extricate.

Friendships were cultured within the approval of the Master. Grudges too. It kept the twelve families fighting amongst themselves just enough that no one would ever be able to organize themselves up, union-like, against the ruling party. And it kept them all united when something outside the estate threatened their 'safe' world. The Baldwin who gave the gun to Armoricus had been the great-nephew of the old Baldwin who was such a friend of Potier back on the Peninsula. All connected, like tunnels inside ant-hills.

Better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven? Poor quarrel, that.

Lestrade thought of Plymouth as hell and London if not Heaven, was surely salvation. He'd wanted to go out and meet that devil of London and see if it was as bad as the one he already knew. It wasn't. He left.

Reign in hell…a good thing? Doubtful.

Milton had said that blasted line first. Lestrade barely knew the classics, and concentrated on the English skills that would improve his work. But one could hardly avoid hearing the betters talk amongst themselves. They enjoyed words that had showed off their schooling. Mr. Holmes and his use of foreign words was a perfect example. It was a separate language all its own, and it was a language of battle.

The battle went to not the person who was right or wrong. It went to the man who knew words the best. PCs never spoke better than the Inspectors; Inspectors never, ever spoke better than the people at the Home Office. And the Home Office was the direct wire to the government. You never faced them on their own ground.

If this is hell, it at least has some rank and order to it…

Water dripped from the sides of Potier's boat. He'd shifted his weight making the whole thing tremble. Lestrade stopped thinking for nearly a minute (bliss) as he waited to see if the old pirate would fall in. That earlier remark about being put in an unmarked grave was suddenly worse than ever.

Then things arighted. They kept going.

And he started thinking again.

Too-often he'd heard Milton's words from another's lips. Better to reign in hell…

Did you ever try to reign in hell? Damson Estates would still be hell, no matter how high one would aspire.

It made about as much sense as another quote, one he hated even more because people were determined to use it the wrong way:

Am I my brother's keeper?

Rot.

After the anger of the mews-fight had ended, Lestrade had been forced to stifle his natural urges on Baldwin. The anger was still there, just hiding. Marcus' comment about spiders had pushed his mind to places and a single moment in time he no longer wanted to remember.

They'd told him he was his brother's keeper no matter what (as if that argument had worked against God), and in ways that suggested it made everyone happy to make Armoricus happy. If the Pope was Peter's successor on earth, then Armoricus was the Master's Son in human form. Follow. Obey. Questioning is rude. Questioning is impertinent. No philosophy should justify slavery within the family. Martin and Nicholas took care of each other because they wanted to. Duty was a hollow burden in childhood if there was nothing to feed it.

A house divided could not stand—that proverb makes sense.

Even Andrew, who was as petty and mercenary as a banker's wife, would never think of joining a family fight (and he'd just proven it).

Next to him, Marcus made a faint sound and pressed himself closer into the little boat. A punt would be easier to use than this clumsy brute. Lestrade thought of the horrible little coracles of his childhood; their shipworthiness had improved the swimming skills of more humans than any other thing in his experience.

And I think I'd prefer a coracle right now…Lestrade swallowed and tried not to think of how the tunnel-arches were getting closer and closer to their heads as the water level continued to rise.

The canal-water didn't even look real. That was the worst of it. They'd gone past the dark red vein of iron water into a slender seep that showed a strange sort of miracle: Past the bloody run of mine-water, a clear spring had flowed innocently over the cobbles on its way to the deeper water of the channel. It was pure. A strange thing in this place tainted by honest workmanship. Like a lens it magnified the earth beneath: common grey stones were tainted like rubies and garnets from the iron. Older stains were darkening like the dull lumps of coal here and there. With age the false gems had grown black and blue-black, and marked eerie trails upon the greenish cobbles and broken brick. Lestrade had stared at the sight upon their passage, for the lamps cast a strange illusion, making the surface of the flowing water appear as tangible as gossamer silk.1

Things had only started out bad at the entrance to the mine. Potier had begged a moment's leave to bribe the lonely (and miserable) guard at the opening. Lestrade didn't know what the selling point was: the shillings or the free flask of American bourbon.

But to do the man credit, it was doubtful either bribe would have worked at all if Potier hadn't produced papers to prove he was a part-owner in the coal.

"Is he really?" Marcus whispered.

"With him? I'd just assume yes." Lestrade put his back against the damp perch of stone, wishing that they could find a shelter out of the just-forming ice storm. Prickles of tiny white marbles stung their exposed ears and dug long fingers inside their collars; Marcus shuddered as if in pain and balled up tight as boiled wool yarn.

Their shelter was thin but at least it did not have to do with going into the black opening hell of that underground canal.

"We're supposed to go through that," Geoffrey spoke as calmly as he could, but this looked like the worst thing his grandfather had come up with, bar none. "That…there."

A round-eyed Marcus silently assented. The entrance to the Worsely mine was full of water. The typical orange tint was diluted from the high amount of rainwater adding to the mess, but it was still appalling to think of getting into something one didn't know the bottom to.

"Don't worry about it." Potier shrugged as he slogged back in his water-proof boots. It must have been simple to read their eyes…or else he was used to the experience. "We have boats."

"…don't really care about boats. Care about learning how to breathe underwater." Marcus said into the collar of his loaned raincoat. Geoffrey awkwardly patted him on the back.

-

Marcus was breathing easier again now that Potier was back on a smooth trail of water. He kept glancing upwards, and the lamp-light reflected the whites of his eyes.

"It's all right, Marcus." Geoffrey told him under his breath. "The tunnels've been here since the 1700's."

"They look new." Marcus admitted; his voice hushed out in the quiet drip. Bricks passed their floating heads, still tight and cleanly-mortared. Icicles made of water and the calcium in the mortar created a strange, dripping thread here and there.

Geoffrey chuckled. "A good bricklayer is never out of work."

Marcus nodded, but he swallowed and looked a little sick. "Does he have to whistle that?" He wanted to know through his teeth.

Geoffrey listened, and sighed. "He probably doesn't know what he's whistling, Marcus."

"How can you live in England and not know the tune to London Bridge is Broken Down?" Marcus whispered back.

"Our grandfather is strangely selective about what he wants to know. But he's never lived longer in England than he has to. I find it safer to assume he knows very little about England." Geoffrey yawned; it was a bad sign. He was tired and increasingly broken down from his day. Potier at least had been able to grab a bit of sleep at the Cheathman house, the old pirate…

"I suppose you're right." Marcus gingerly touched his pole to the watery ground. Something gave under the tip, like a grainy lump of coal. "It smells like a fruit-cellar in here." He whispered. "Like mushrooms."

"No mushrooms I'd eat here."

"Nor I. I prefer truffles. Nothing here looks like the right sort of tree."

Geoffrey smiled despite himself.

"All this for a bag of money." Marcus sighed. "I hope it still is here."

"That makes the two of us…if it isn't, I won't be pleased." Geoffrey wondered if it were possible to go mad from inactivity.

"I don't like thinking he's spending his money on us." Marcus confessed. "He should be saving it for his old age."

"I would have agreed with you a year ago, Marcus." Geoffrey picked up his pole and gently pressed it against the sides of the tunnel; they were a little close for his comfort. "But I've come to the belief that our old Tad-kohz is doing exactly what he planned to do with his old age."

"He says Mamm will improve once she gets back home…to her old home." Marcus murmured. "I suppose we'll find out if we improve too."

"You'll do fine." Geoffrey assured him.

"I'm more worried about Tad. Do you think he'll be better in the Channels?"

"Positive."

"I wish I could share your optimism."

"That's got nothing to do about it. It's common sense. Once they get on the island, I won't be around to reinforce his madness."

Marcus made a strange clucking sound. "Maybe there's room for a horse over there."

Geoffrey found himself smiling thinly. "There's a thought."

"But his hands…"

"I know."

"Pity without help does little good." Marcus decided at last.

"Yes."

Up head, Potier gave a happy shout.

"Here we are then." Geoffrey whispered.

"What now?"

"We get it out of here, and pack the three of you up to one of the old rascal's ships."

"Will you be going with us?"

"It looks like it…"

Geoffrey sounded sad even to himself. He shut up. Marcus didn't need to know how he felt to see his mother's smiling face underneath his skin.

Reuniting with Jenny and her laughing husband had been a slim fantasy over the years; the people who had liked him best deserved better than that. They were gone now, and their son was now his last brother. It was hard to see the young man, but the thought of not seeing him was even harder.

I think I'll be glad to get back to work at the Yard. I wonder what Dr. Watson's doing?

Miles away in London, Inspector Gregson was wondering the exact same thing.

Next chapter: What Dr. Watson is doing…

1 Without the spectra of sunlight or an illumination from multiple locations, underground water has an eerie, two-dimensional appearance as if it possesses a different texture and property. This is because water will partially reflect light, and not penetrate.